


Hands

by theclockiscomplete



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4449914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclockiscomplete/pseuds/theclockiscomplete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor insists on a trip to see fire fish, and Clara ends up burned. He most definitely does not spend the entire drabble making up for this. Nope, not at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a tumblr prompt: "Imagine person A has burnt their hands and person B has to be their hands until they are healed."
> 
> Again, just a thing at work, which I must now get back to. Enjoy the fluff!

“Doctor, it’s fine. Seriously.”

“You’re still agitated.”

“Brilliant observation, but there isn’t a lot we can do about it, is there?”

The Doctor sighed and tied a final knot in the synth bandages wrapped around Clara’s hands. “I suppose not.” His voice worked to keep light. Clara softened, and she sighed.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know. Well. Maybe the lava fish were on some level, but I mean this in general.” She gestured with a bandaged hand, encompassing the TARDIS, the Doctor, her new life. “I knew what I was getting into,” she said.

A raise of one bold eyebrow. “You knew you’d get burned by alien fish? Between my telepathy and your clairvoyance, we could—” Clara punched him in the arm, and then a moment later, said “ow.” The Doctor hid his amusement and reached down, placing a hand under her knees and one around her shoulders. Clara flailed, but quit as soon as she stretched her burned thigh too far. She settled against him, resigned.

“Not that I’m not enjoying this,” she said after a few steps, “but this isn’t usually your area. Touching. Holding. You’re wearing what—only three layers?”

“You’re hurt,” he said. “I’m a Doctor.”

“Because I had so much previous bedside manner to go off of.”

“You weren’t hurt before. Are we bantering?” He set her down on a cabinet in the TARDIS kitchen.

“Definitely not,” Clara said, wincing as she adjusted her position to accommodate her burned leg. “What are we doing in here?”

She thought he’d ignored the question entirely for a long moment, during which he was rifling through cabinets that were no doubt bigger on the inside, but then he turned around with a triumphant sound, brandishing a frying pan, and said, “You’re going to need to keep those bandages on for twenty-four hours. Humans generally eat every four to six. It stands to reason—”

“You’re trying to make up for going to see the lava fish.”

“I am doing no such thing,” the Doctor said over the sound of an egg cracking.

Clara let it go. “You have to eat too,” she pointed out.

“And I will,” he said. “But for the next twenty-four hours or so, I have to be your hands.”

Clara considered this. “You’re feeding me then?”

He glanced back at her from his position at the stove. “Although the alternative would no doubt yield some absolutely hilarious results, yes. That was the plan.” If he was surprised that her swathed hands were able to fling a nearby spatula at him, he didn’t show it.

 

 

For Clara, having someone else be her hands felt frustratingly like watching a movie with delayed subtitles; the Doctor was quick to ascertain her needs, but there was still a lag that even his constant touch-telepathy—a hand on her wrist—had a hard time compensating for. It was during dinner, though, that the Doctor’s attention to detail shone through—he knew exactly in what order she wanted her food, and was baffled when she was surprised. “I’ve seen you eat at least a hundred meals, Clara,” he said when she told him again to quit reading her mind. “I know what pattern you follow when you eat.”

“Bit creepy,” she replied before biting down on the offered carrot.

Having sentient hands was also, she realized very quickly, not without other pitfalls.

“I don’t care if we have to change the bandages, I am going in there by myself.” Clara crossed her arms, gingerly, and glared at him.

“What is it with humans and modesty? It’s a perfectly normal—”

“Shut up,” Clara said. “Stop right there. There are just some places we don’t go with other people, and the toilet is one of them.” She glanced at him. “Also. Modesty? Really? You’re calling _me_ out on it? I can hardly get you out of your clothes for a shag!”

“Which was my next point,” the Doctor said. “I have seen you naked.”

“Put me down.”

The Doctor heaved a longsuffering sigh and set her on her feet as gently as possible, and then hovered his hands over her as she balanced on one leg and hopped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. How the _hell_ she’d managed to look like she was marching away from him on one leg was one of the many mysteries about Clara Oswald that he was never going to be able to figure out.

 

 

When the time came for bed, the Doctor helped Clara into one of his t-shirts and a soft pair of cotton shorts so as to not constrict the burn beneath the bandages on her thigh. “You kept it!” Clara exclaimed as she looked down at the band name across her chest.

“Of course I kept it. What do you think I wear under the jumper with the holes?”

“Nothing, usually,” Clara said. “Certainly not a Coldplay shirt.”

He made a noise. “Must not have worn it with you before.”

“It smells like you.” The eyebrow again. “Space and dust, and…a kind of perfume,” she elaborated. “Very cosy.” She reached for her pillow and frowned. “How much longer until these dissolve?”

“Few more hours,” he said, reaching over her and arranging the pillows one on top of the other, the way she liked to sleep on them. “They should be fully assimilated when you wake up.”

“Maybe I’ll let you feed me anyway,” she said with a grin. “Dinner was just so…frustrating like this.”

He blinked. “Then why would you want me to…oh.” His eyebrows rose and yes, there was that blush. How she loved bringing it out of him. “That kind of frustrating,” he finished.

“You are impossible.”

He shrugged, smiled a little, and pulled the duvet up to her shoulders. “That's you who's impossible, Clara," he said softly. "I am just highly improbable.”


End file.
